February 03, 2017

Patriots owner on Trump: ‘In the toughest time in my life, he was there for me’

President Trump rarely shows a soft side, but Patriots owner Robert Kraft did it for him Friday during an appearance on Fox News.

Kraft said that after his wife, Myra, died in 2011, Trump was a loyal and thoughtful friend.

“In the toughest time in my life, he was there for me,” Kraft told “Fox & Friends” host Brian Kilmeade. “He came to the funeral with Melania. He'd visit me at my home. … He called me once a week for a year. 'How are you doing?' I was really depressed, and he invited me to things, and he looked out after me.”

Few other people were as devoted as Trump during that period, Kraft added.

Kraft, who made his fortune running a paper and packaging company founded by his wife's father, said he and Trump never did business together but became friends about 20 years ago. During the presidential campaign, Trump boasted about having the support of Kraft, Patriots coach Bill Belichick and quarterback Tom Brady. (Brady and Belichick have both said they have a “friendship” with Trump.)

Trump, obsessed with projecting strength, seldom gives the media a glimpse of moments like the ones described by Kraft.

“The last time I cried was when I was a baby,” he told People magazine during the campaign.

One exception: Trump does open up (a little) when he explains why he changed his stance on abortion.

“What happened is friends of mine, years ago, were going to have a child, and it was going to be aborted,” he said during the first Republican primary debate. “And it wasn't aborted. And that child today is a total superstar, a great, great child. And I saw that.”

Otherwise, Trump lets people who know him share humanizing anecdotes — and even those are rare. In a speech at the Republican National Convention, Ivanka Trump described her father's personal touch.

“Over the years, on too many occasions to count, I saw my father tear stories out of the newspaper about people whom he had never met, who were facing some injustice or hardship,” she said. “He'd write a note to his assistant, in a signature black felt tip pen, and request that the person be found and invited to Trump Tower to meet with him. He would talk to them and then draw upon his extensive network to find them a job or get them a break.”

The public list of such stories is not very long, but Kraft added to it on Friday.